You operate in a marketplace in which your core products are in secular decline, yet taxed to the hilt, and the subject of an ever-more stringent regulatory regime. You contributed around £9.96bn in duty tax receipts to HM Revenue and Customs in 2020-21, yet are given pariah status by Whitehall policymakers. Welcome to the tobacco industry.
You imagine that industry executives must be breathing easier (so to speak) now that the petroleum sector has taken on the mantle of whipping boy, although lobbyists are still faced with an uphill task. Raw numbers bear this out. Data analysed by the American Lung Association show that 13.7 per cent of adults in the US smoke, against a rate of 42.4 per cent in 1965. More importantly, smoking among the nation’s youth has demonstrated a precipitous decline since the mid-1990s.
